Ennio Morricone will receive a massive retrospective at @[11279496579:69:MoMA The Museum of Modern Art], from Dec. 1 to Jan. 10. Featured will be 35 films in all genres, including of course a heaping helping of spaghetti westerns. It’s only a mere tip of the cheroot for a composer who wrote hundreds of film and television scores, perhaps more than anyone else. Of particular interest is the inclusion of a rarely-seen German television program featuring Morricone and Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza (“The Group”), an experimental collective of composer-musicians that banded together in Rome in 1964 in a utopian spirit of nonhierarchical improvisation. You’ll find more information at the link. Make plans now to mosey on over to MoMA for a fistful of Morricone.
Tag: Ennio Morricone
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Ennio Morricone Maestro of the Spaghetti Western
It often frustrated Ennio Morricone that he was so identified with the spaghetti western. After all, he composed music for some 500 film and television productions, of which only a few dozen were set in a highly stylized American west – more often than not recreated in Spain. It’s the price to pay for having brilliantly revitalized an exhausted genre.
Primarily for budgetary reasons (the Italians didn’t have the luxury of Hollywood’s overflowing coffers), but also, in part, as a reaction to the ballad scores of Dimitri Tiomkin and the neo-Coplandisms of Elmer Bernstein, Morricone brought his own quirky sensibility to bear on the classic western iconography. His music is offbeat, ear-catching, and almost absurdly cool.
This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll celebrate Morricone’s birthday (he was born on this date in 1928) with a heaping helping of spaghetti and selections from his scores for “A Fistful of Dollars” (1964), “For a Few Dollars More” (1965), “Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968), “Navajo Joe” (1966), and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” (1966).
His striking music for Sergio Leone’s “Dollars” trilogy, especially that for “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” became some of the most iconic of all time, frequently parodied, and as much a part of our collective cultural consciousness as that for “Jaws” and “Psycho.”
Morricone died in 2020 at the age of 91. His only competitive Oscar was for the Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” (allegedly a spaghetti western homage) in 2016. Previously, he was nominated for “Days of Heaven” (1978), “The Mission” (1986), “The Untouchables” (1987), “Bugsy” (1991), and “Malena” (2000). He received an honorary award from the Academy in 2007.
Get ready for a serenade of clangy surfer guitars, whistles, harmonicas, whips, gunshots, jaw harps, preening trumpets, coyote howls, shrieks, wails, and barking male choruses.
Happy birthday, Ennio Morricone. Grazie, Maestro, for all the Colts and carbs. We’ll be ladling out the spicy marinara on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for the Trenton-Princeton area. Here are the respective air-times of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EST)
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EST)
Stream them here!
The Spaghetti Western Database – SWDb
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Spagvemberfest Spaghetti Western Movie Marathon
Okay, Halloween is past. It’s All Saints’ Day. Not only that, but it also happens to be the start of Spagvemberfest!
What’s that, you say? Why, it’s a month-long challenge to view a spaghetti western a day.
What exactly is a “spaghetti western?” It’s a term bestowed by American film critics on Italian-produced oaters. Characteristically, they are filmed by Italians, often in Spain, sometimes in the American southwest. They likely feature an international cast, with a recognizable rising or fading star as their lead or leads. All the voices are dubbed in post-production, often to humorous effect. The characters are motivated by revenge or a lust for gold. In terms of morality, only a few degrees tend to separate the hero and the villain. Often there is an adherence to the conventions of the American western, however with the intent of deflating the western myth. There is certainly a preponderance of stylized violence. And if it’s worth watching, it probably features Somerville, New Jersey’s own Lee Van Cleef (pictured).
Admittedly, the genre is an acquired taste. I don’t know about you, but I’m really going to need this, as we begin the inexorable slide toward the holidays.
Wholly by coincidence, I’ll be doing my part by presenting a heaping helping of spaghetti western scores for the birthday of composer Ennio Morricone on my radio show, “Picture Perfect,” on Friday, November 10, at 8 p.m. EDT.
You can listen to it here:
And just in case you don’t get the “Hey, amigos” reference in the ad…
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Ennio Morricone Rome Mural Celebrates Maestro
Big Ennio is watching you!
Ennio Morricone mural dedicated in Rome yesterday on what would have been the composer’s 94th birthday.
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Ennio Morricone Bittersweet Genius
There is something just so innately Italian about the music of Ennio Morricone. So often in his works the smiles and tears commingle. He really caught the bittersweet essence of what it is to be alive. If he had lived a hundred years earlier, he might have been one of the great opera composers. When he’s not in badass spaghetti western mode, that is.
Happy birthday, Ennio Morricone, wherever you are.
“Cinema Paradiso”
“The Mission”
“Once Upon a Time in the West”
And, just so I don’t take the gas pipe, “The Ecstasy of Gold” from “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”
Which I would request to be played at my funeral, if not for “Navajo Joe”
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